Emotional Resistance

Resistance to uncomfortable emotions and ways of healthy distraction.

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In the previous post, we talked about the importance of facing your-self, your emotions, straight on without using unhealthy distracting habits/coping mechanisms. Most of us have minimal knowledge about the work of the body & the psyche, so we turn to the only available habits we know, such as smoking, alcohol, drugs, overworking, extreme sports, dieting, body control, starvation (we will further discuss how we use food to cope) etc. This includes any activity that allows us to get out of our own heads, so to speak. This immediate relief or fast-reward system may have a destructive effect on our mental and physical health, as well as the people closest to us. However, because the effect of this type of behavior is only really noticeable in the long term, this gives us justification to do so “in the meantime”, thinking “I’ll quit whenever I want to”, not considering our future self and others, disconnecting from our own experiences. This means that we are unable to fully be present with family, friends and life events in general because we are constantly numbing the “pain” which includes all feelings, not only the negative ones. Life is to be experienced both inside and out, however some of our activities include too much self-focus, self-obsession & instant self-gratification, this makes us unable to connect with others because we are living in our heads. I believe this is called narcissism? When an individual is so scared or hurt by the outside world, that they enter their “shell” and their only interest is how others can make them feel better and serve them. They run from discomfort and seek pleasure in any way possible.

For example, a psychosomatic illness or issue may be expressed through a symptom (action-reaction) like overeating caused by emotional abuse. This may involve a person in a controlling relationship (of any kind – parents, siblings, spouse), where they feel unsafe to be their authentic self, to share and show their real emotions and thoughts. This fear paralyses them, and instead of answering back or standing up for themselves to their “abusers” (by setting boundaries for example or leaving), they may choose to “self soothe” with drugs (in the extreme case), or less harmful behavior – they might turn to food for comfort and relief from their uncomfortable feelings. For example, a heightened desire for sweet food might indicate a lack of kindness, “sweetness” and romance, in life. Perhaps when unhappy in a relationship, but too afraid to leave, an individual might prefer to just “eat“ the urge to lash-out. Dissatisfaction might push another person to workout extra-intensively to perhaps feel more “in control” by monitoring their body size. Each person will use the fastest and easiest relief system they find.

While I do recommend moving away from distractions, I also want to underline the importance of doing so progressively within your comfort zone, especially if you have spent many years of your life running away from feelings. In order not to “drawn” in sorrow, figuratively speaking, perhaps continue old “destructive” habits but add in new “healthy” ones, and give yourself time to naturally choose the latter rather than just trying to completely eradicate all negative behaviors. This is where you can focus on what will make you feel good in the long term, thinking about what type of person you want to be and how you want to feel in ten or twenty years. If you do not change how you feel, your feelings will be the same as today may be more intense. This change does not have to be a battle and can be done slowly, patiently, with love, compassion and understanding for yourself. Realize that the behaviors you chose previously were also out of love at the time, from the need of your younger self to be more feel better. Forgive your “inner child” and younger self.  It’s alright, no matter what you did, it is reversible. Be generous and kind to yourself. 

Take it slow, because whatever you suppressed – will come out. Read that again: All feelings when no longer suppressed will eventually come out. Even if it was a situation which happened in your childhood, in which you didn’t speak up, you will remember it and feel everything you had felt at that moment. Here – gently feel, meaning whatever emotion comes – go with it. Feel angry? Punch a pillow. Feel sad? Cry. Write a letter, call people and let it out. 

Progressively, no need to write 1000 angry letters right away. Give yourself permission to process. While dealing with these emotions take breaks. Here are some “healthier” distractions you can use:

Clean and organize your house
Watch a movie or listen to some music
Dance, maybe have fun repeating an online choreography video
Do something fun, Go ice skating/Rollerblading
Paint or draw something
Learn and make a new cooking recipe
Read a book, Go for a walk, or drive
Make a dream board
Say some affirmations
Plant some seeds, do some gardening
Get some aromatherapy
Play on the computer
Do a puzzle, play a game
Move your body
Journal, Sing
Learn a new skill!

When we begin facing our emotional needs, we often face a sort of resistance that urges us to move away from it. This resistance to change is accompanied by feelings of discomfort, perhaps anger, distress and the feeling of doing it “wrong” and it “not working”. This is when the real change happens and we build emotional resistance, maturity. This is when we allow this resistance to be. Don’t remove it, suppress it or distract from it. This is the moment to sit with it and simply observe, watch what happens.

There is no way to remove Resistance, it will handle itself. Trying to stop resistance only creates more resistance. This is a notion I have struggled with so much in the past and that I am only now (after years of learning about it) starting to understand. It is incredibly hard to do (or more like – NOT DO) because it contradicts the rules which most of us are brought up with. When we think of a verb /action word, we think of “performing” it, like actually physically doing the deed. To sleep we think of the action of sleeping, “I am going to sleep“, but are you consciously doing the work of putting yourself to sleep internally? Or perhaps you leave those processes to your body. All you do is allow the sleep to come over you. The new contradicting idea is that no action is necessary to take… To let go, you do not need to perform an action of “Letting go”.You just do nothing. And by doing nothing, the emotion goes on its own. Resistance cannot be met with “action” per se.

“Allow the resistance to leave on its own terms.

The answer is to observe the resistance. To watch ourselves from the side. As if observing an experiment, no agenda no action. So to recapitulate: allow, accept, meditate if you can, be gentle with yourself and just observe and let be! This is where in time you will see magic happen in your mind and life! Have a wonderful day! See you on Monday. 🙂

Emotional stabilization

Nurturing Practices for Emotional stabilization

Emotions come and go, we cannot really control them, even if we are very creative in finding ways to distract ourselves from them. Emotional stability means allowing feelings to be, whilst being grounded in yourself. It is knowing that you can release fear and trust yourself. This is of great importance because our misunderstanding of the function behind our feelings is what causes distress. If we are afraid of our sadness or anger for example and try to push it away, it actually blocks this energy furthermore. Fear is a very strong emotion and we cannot accept what is when in a state of “fear”, so in order to reduce the suffering we must learn more about the Human Psyche. This knowledge can help us deal with challenging moments in life. Our capacity to think and move on is put on hold when we are tense and stressed out. Our mind cannot function properly when it perceives danger at every corner, and when we experience stress we send signals to our bodies that we are in danger. In this “survival mode” we live in a sort of mental fog because most of our energy is sent out to prepare the body for a life-threatening situation. If we do not find means of “evacuation” of this energy, the body will take control and decide in our place. The dis-ease it feels is the disease it brings.

Think of the body like a bus or a train. We are the driver of this vehicle and our emotions, thoughts, and feelings are the passengers. We have a route, and we drive from one stop to the other. Our passengers enter and exit at different stations or bus stops. Once more: we are the conductor. The type of passenger we get is out of our control and does not define who we are as people and/or where we are going. They come and go as they please, we can acknowledge them but our eyes on the road, looking ahead. When we start meeting some of our basic needs and introduce self-nurturing activities in our lives, we begin to open more mental space and clarity to help us deal with our emotions.
Feeling safe and taken care of brings feelings of comfort and ease. We are great at taking care of others – our partners, our children, family members, friends, even strangers at work, etc.; but some of us do not see the importance of putting some of that love into ourselves. Some of us think if we love another person/people hard enough, they will return our love and in that way, we think that is self-love. NO. Love is treating yourself no more and no less than you treat the people you love the most. Respect and honor that you show yourself starts from considering what your needs are and making space and time for yourself. You’ve heard it before but hear it again: “You cannot pour from an empty cup”. If you decide to ignore your own self, then prepare to be dissatisfied forever in hope that someone will treat you the way you know you should deserve.

Loving yourself means making time. Stop rescheduling, for your own sanity. Stop waiting for when you will be ready, or good enough to deserve it. Stop waiting till you change, or you get older, or bigger, or smaller. No matter your situation, you deserve it NOW. It takes some habit-making work to do at the beginning (repetition), but in no time this will become your norm. Here are some self-care activities :

• Meditation
• Take a nap, rest
• Listen to calming music
• Get a massage
• Take a day off to a spa salon, sauna, or jacuzzi
• Take a bubble bath, use candles and aromatherapy
• Decorate your space, make it cozy, make it ‘you‘
• Deep breathing practices
• Get yourself something nice
• Call or meet-up with friends
• Try some yoga or stretching
• Hug your loved ones and/or pets
• Get a manicure, pedicure, facial, haircut, etc.

Now that you have taken the time to relax, let’s talk about how to Deal with Your Feelings.
Notice what is troubling you, allow it to come up. Usually, this where we feel the need to push the feelings down with alcohol, food, games, dating, drugs, intimate connections, and so on. A few ideas of what you could do instead:

• Sit alone and start a conversation with yourself. Ask and try to answer your own questions, see where this leads you. For example: “Why did X or X situation make me lose my mind so much?” “Why did X bother me ?” and try to answer. “Well, X reminded me of when I was in summer camp, and Y told me XYZ and it makes me feel embarrassed”. Try to resolve what you can, and just reveal and face those feelings, forgive and release them. Repeat several times.
• Write your sensations and thoughts in a journal.
• Record some of your ideas into your phone and listen to it after
• Put two pillows facing each other. On one side is the aggressor/person/situation that hurt you and the other is you. Sitting on the “you” side – Speak, scream, yell, and/or pound the pillow, say everything you were holding back to your offender. Change sides and sit on the opposite pillow, now reply to this, defend or ask for forgiveness. Release! Let go!
• Let yourself cry, or be angry, or feel sad
• Sit with your feelings and watch how they change, intensify or reduce, just observe
• Breathing exercise, visualization, meditation
• Talk to someone about it
• Confront the person causing your distress if you can or write a letter.
• If you have trouble doing this on your own, perhaps consider finding a therapist (physical or virtual perhaps).

Basic Needs [pt I]

 How to handle triggering emotions: Basic needs

Concepts and ideas face inevitable change. Previously, we had been led to believe that we were simply biological machines and nothing more. Every system was separate from another and otherwise meaningless. We need just focus on the “faulty” one, fix it and everything would be fine. A headache, for example, was nothing more than the sole problem of the head and if you took a pill, you were good to go! And before that, a little blood-letting here and there was viewed as the cure to illness. 

Today we are beginning to understand the connection between all these seemingly unrelated systems and how they add up to make us as a whole. We are on the precipice of understanding the roots of our illness which could indeed be psychosomatic in many cases. A headache, the decrease of blood flow to the brain, could be a sign of stress and tension resulting from the action of constantly “tensing up” the muscles of the body, the inability to relax, a permanent state of alertness. When we are tense, for example, some of us push up our shoulders, unconsciously hold our breathe (very shallow and short breaths), and feel a lot of stiffness around the neck area. After a couple years this results in chronic neck and shoulder pain and/or problems breathing. We concentrate so much of our energy in our minds, that we forget to check on the body, how it is doing.

Everything that we experience is real and valuable, even if we are ashamed of it. We have the right to feel them in every way we see fit. However, seeing that we are only at the very beginning of discovering ourselves as more than just “instincts” and pure biology, the ways some of us have seen “fit” to “feel” up until now have been quite damaging. Our ignorance on the subject of the Human psyche has led us to search for this “relief” in any way possible, apart from actually facing these sensations straight on. Concerning mental health, there is still so much stigma and ridicule that discourages us from ever getting help. “Suck it up and keep pushing!” doesn’t really allow space for self-exploration. Instead, we search for perfection and the “deserving” feeling we think we will get should we find greatness (through career, fitness/body/beauty goals, marriage, popularity, fame for the sake of achievement rather than for passion or love of doing it). This could be a short-term relief, but our thoughts always catch up to us no matter what we achieve or how “perfect” we look on paper. 

Yes, at times just being alive can feel like too much work. To be part of society is not only to follow rules but to have character and persistence to make new rules. I believe that we all are mentally and physically very “strong” people, whether we believe it or not. Some of us are just better at distracting and/or pretending than others, but to an extent, we all pass through similar experiences in different times and spaces. There is a greatness to us as a species, to perhaps not fully understand life but still fight for our place in it. Remarkable creatures indeed! It takes courage and, quite frankly, madness-loving character traits to thrive in our society! Living in a stress-inducing system that we created for ourselves can leave us feeling uncomfortable, and trigger emotions of despair, cluelessness, discomfort, and dis-ease. Our goal is to find ways to handle and understand our emotions (ultimately our inner World) as much as we understand our outer shell (seeing that so many of us are nutrition specialists and fitness gurus). No shade. However, knowing is not understanding.

Some people get acquainted with their feelings early on in life and find healthy ways to harness their “life force”. Others struggle to understand themselves, running away from these feelings of discomfort and instead focus on ways to distract. We find loopholes for this built-up inner energy, we cope with them through different outlets, like food, exercise, drugs, alcohol, relationships, work, etc. and yet we are still not really satisfied when we either focus too much on everything or when we neglect it all. We push this “energy” into work, for example, but not enough into human connection perhaps, or vice versa. The first step towards ourselves is to acknowledge that we have needs and that we are entitled to having them met. Basic needs are also survival needs :

• Health, body function
• Water, food, good living conditions
• Family, friends, human relations
• Shelter, protection, safety, security. 
• Rest, sleep, comfort, and warmth
• Feeling accepted, heard, and understood, expressing feelings
• Being intellectually and creatively stimulated
• Getting pleasure

In other words “love”, “care” and “nurture”. Feeling taken care of provides mental health benefits. We often take care of others – children, family members, friends, even clients, etc; but we forget to put some of that love into ourselves. In the next post we will discuss some of these self-care activities. When we start meeting some of our basic needs and introduce self-nurturing activities in our lives, we begin to open more mental space and clarity to help us deal with our emotions. Many of our capacities are put on hold when we are tense and stressed out. When you are in “survival mode” and your body experiences life-threatening sensations like anxiety, it finds ways of “evacuation”. These “escapes” might prove to be dangerous in the years to come, and even if you do not feel the effects of “escapism” now, think about your future self and the people close to you that will also suffer from your choices. 
What are some of your favourite self relaxing practices?